Mortal Plane
by Whitewash
Summary: When one is dead, he or she happens to have a lot more time to think about missed opportunities. Setsuna's going to get a lot more than she asked for when she stops Sayo from looking for Asakura.


Ghosts floated. Ghosts passed through walls. Ghosts had _hitodama_. Ghosts could be felt, manifested in chilly, unnatural breezes.

Sayo Aisaka was a ghost. She did all these things. She also tripped when she had no feet, was frightened more often than frightening, and had befriended Kazumi Asakura, the classmate who sat next to her in class. So while meandering through the hallways, spontaneously creating freezing winds, and generally being scared and confused, she was also looking for Kazumi.

"Wah... I lost you again, Asakura..." whined the sixty-or-so-year-old ghost.

By this point, Sayo had managed to find her way outside. The sky was blue and there were few clouds, so it was sunny. Students were walking around campus, their laughter and conversations filling the air, but as far as Sayo could tell, none of them were Kazumi Asakura.

Sayo sighed. The unlucky spirit figured that, without feet or solid things in her path, it would be easier to move about the school, though it just became more confusing the more often she passed through walls. Moreover, she didn't recognize any of the students she saw as being from 3A, which was even worse. At least, if she found one of them, she could at least ask if they knew anything about Kazumi's whereabouts.

Staring down at the ground, the girl launched herself higher into the sky. Now she was above the ground to the match the height of the third floor of one of the school's buildings. She would get a better view this way, though she had to keep in mind the possibility that Kazumi could possibly be indoors, inside one of the buildings.

But there were so many of them... Ugh...

Sayo headed east, scouting the academy from there. She caught a familiar face—Konoka Konoe, was it—leaving the area. The ghost wasted no time in getting closer to the ground, but she ended up falling and tumbled down to the patch of grass Konoka had been standing on. Sayo only barely managed to catch Konoka's shoe as she went back into the school.

"Ah! Konoe... Wait!" Sayo put a hand up in an effort to stop her, and then sighed as no one came out of the building's double doors. "This is terrible... What am I supposed to do now?"

The schoolgirl's spirit floated back upright again and looked around with cautious red eyes.

"Hmm... Huh?"

That was right. There was a big oak tree that Sayo had seen from her scouting spot, which, naturally, attracted her to this area. After she had spotted Konoka, she had tried to catch her, but failed. Now, this didn't mean that there could be one or a few other students from 3A around here.

One, there was. Sitting at the base of the trunk was Setsuna Sakurazaki, with an, at least, from Sayo's point of view, unreadable expression as she stared at the double doors some feet away from her. Now, from the ghost girl's deductions, it was almost certain that they had been talking about one thing or another. In fact, Setsuna rarely left Konoka's side, for whatever reason. Sayo figured that they were close friends of a sort. Setsuna didn't usually talk to Asakura, but that didn't mean she didn't know anything about her, right? Right?

"Mm..."

Sayo decided to throw caution to the wind and try to communicate with one of the girls that had almost exorcised her from this spiritual plane. She hovered up to Setsuna, who, for some reason, had still not noticed her arrival.

"Funny," the spirit mused aloud, "I thought you could see me. You did tried to send me to the afterlife, didn't you?..."

"Hm! What!" Setsuna seemed to jump up from her spot, completely alert now that someone had shaken her out of her supposed reverie. The girl looked around cautiously. "Who's there?"

"I'm sorry!" squeaked Sayo. "I-I didn't know you were still asleep!"

"I wasn't asleep... Huh?" Setsuna turned to her left, only to see Sayo Aisaka, the resident ghost of 3A. "Aisaka? What are you doing here?"

"I was hoping that you would be able to give me a clue as to where Asakura would be right now, but I didn't realize I was intruding; I'm sorry!" said the ghost once more.

"Kazumi Asakura?" asked Setsuna. "I'm sorry, I don't know where she is right now... It is lunchtime, though, so she'll probably be wherever she usually eats lunch."

"Oh... You're right," murmured Sayo. "She would be somewhere around there, wouldn't she? Wah, even for a ghost, I'm absentminded..." She put her face in her hands and shook her head.

"I don't think it's that bad. It could've been much worse for you, you know," said Setsuna with a shrug. "You could've been exorcised, even though you're a mostly harmless spirit."

"Ah, yes, you can exorcise demons, can't you?" asked Sayo. "With that sword, I mean. It must be a dangerous job."

"Sometimes, yes, but I always manage to get out of it, somehow..." murmured Setsuna with a far-away look in her eye.

"You have this certain sort of presence around you, though; it's different from a lot of the other students," added the ghost. "It's unusual, because, for the most part, you look, um, normal."

Setsuna looked alarmed. "You..." she stood up and approached Sayo cautiously, "what do you mean by that?"

"Oh, did... did I hit a sensitive spot? I'm very sorry; forgive me," she spluttered, shaking her hands. "I really don't mean to intrude or anything at all! I think I'll continue my search for Asakura now..." Sayo turned around and began to head towards the building.

Setsuna was adamant, however. "No," she stated, her tone firm enough to make the ghost stop. "Tell me, what did you mean?"

"Eek!" Sayo, hesitant at first, turned her head around. "Ah... Um... What I meant to say was that..."

Setsuna frowned, following her closer to the doorway. "Be honest with me, please. What seems different about me? If you must know, there is something unusual about me..."

"No, really, I have no intention of... of..." The ghost sighed, bowing her head. "All right, I understand. What I meant was... " she took a deep breath and looked straight into Setsuna's eyes, "you don't have the aura of an ordinary human. I can't quite mark it as being, say, evil or hostile or anything of the sort... well, maybe... but being a ghost who's lived here for sixty years, at a magic school, even, I can quite clearly say that you are different from the other students who don't know anything about magic, or even those who do, and that you must be hiding a secret. That... that is all. I can't quite pinpoint out what's separating you from the others, but I feel that it is a very," she narrowed her eyes, "how would you say, 'complex situation,' one that's better left untouched by someone like me. And," she swallowed, "there's also the chance that I might let slip some of it to Asakura, which would be bad."

Sayo smiled. "But, overall, you project a very strong sense of justice, of, of being, of _knowing_, and I think it's nice to be around you, because you've got such a strong sense of self, and... of purpose."

Setsuna blinked, wordless but touched. "Aisaka..."

"Being here for sixty years, I hope, counts for something, right?" Sayo tapped her head. "You could say I've accumulated some knowledge, some philosophy, I guess, watching people day-in and day-out. Very few of them are like you, and those that are, I respect. But, you know," she looked down with uncertainty, twiddling her thumbs, "it's a weakness as well, that sense of purpose." She looked up again. "It's great that you're so determined at this age—oh, look at me, I feel so old even though I'm immortal—but change is important, too. I see changes all the time," she smiled, "in people... in you.

"I guess I'm trying to say that, even though whatever's keeping you going may make you strong, strong enough that you create such a wonderful aura around you, you have to learn to live with changes that might get thrown your way. You know..." There was a sudden silence. "...like dying, for instance." Sayo's eyes seemed to harden, become more substantial; they almost looked like rubies. "Even if you don't enjoy the situation that's been presented before you, losing something that's always been... been your everything, you have to learn to adapt, because you won't always like what happens to you. Ahaha..." she gave a soft chuckle and looked behind her at what undoubtedly lied behind the double doors, "it's called life." She turned back to Setsuna. "Life is experiencing. It's growing. It's changing, for better or for worse. And, well," Sayo looked down, with a sullen smile on her face, "I don't have one anymore, you know?"

The spirit looked to Setsuna again, smiling brightly at her dumbfounded face. She linked her hands tightly, gripping her fingers and looked to the side, at the ground. "I'm sorry to dump all of this on you at such an inconvenient time, it's just that you seemed like the type of person who would latch onto something so strongly, you couldn't keep on living if you lost that something, and I don't want you to do that. It's such a horrible mistake, taking your own life... I was murdered, so..."

Footsteps crunched on the grassy lawn. Sayo was cut short as she saw Setsuna walk towards her. The living girl had a very stone-like expression on, though Sayo knew she was holding back tears. Maybe... just maybe... that face would falter somewhere. Maybe in the presence of close friends, maybe in her room at night, maybe not at all.

But it looked very close to faltering right now.

They were but three feet away from each other. Sayo floated only a foot above the ground, and Setsuna stood on the edge of the lawn, where grass and soil met concrete and stone. The ghost had a gentle smile on her face, while Setsuna looked broken, somehow, as she stared wordlessly at the girl who had told her more about herself than she could ever know.

The wind blew. Sayo's hair and skirts were still. Setsuna's fluttered in the wind. Between the two of them, there was only a long, long silence.

Finally, Setsuna tried to speak up. She looked down at the ground first and readied her expression, hoping to face Sayo with that steady, well-honed, soldier-worthy demeanor. When she locked eyes with that calm, smiling wisp of a person, however, it just collapsed. Setsuna could do nothing but stare back down at the crack that so cleanly separated the grass from the stone—the dead from the living.

Carried by the wind, only to fall to the ground, were tears. Her tears.

In the distance, there was the faint ringing of several bells.

Konoka threw the doors open to meet Setsuna again, looking worried about her as she saw her standing on the lawn.

"Secchan!" chirped the middle-schooler. "Where were you? We were supposed to eat lunch together... Secchan?" She frowned, walking over to her friend, and bent over to get a look at Setsuna's face. "What's wrong?"

Sayo glanced at Konoka, then looked at Setsuna for one final time before deciding that this was her cue to leave.

Setsuna's tears blinded her vision and choked sobs forced their way out of her swollen throat. Konoka's voice was wordless; her face was featureless. Sayo's voice seemed like a single, faint glow of hope in this dark, dark world—barely audible, but clearly, truly there.

"Secchan! Secchan!"

Setsuna looked up at Konoka. She didn't even try to look strong, not if it was just for Konoka's sake. "Ojou-sama..."

Konoka had been staring up at the sky. "What did she say?" she asked. Her voice was so soft, it was like a whisper.

Setsuna merely smiled through her tears, and pulled Konoka into a hug, burying her face into the other girl's shoulder.

Konoka, surprised at first that Setsuna would even attempt such an open act of affection, eventually smiled at the closeness, returning her embrace.

She didn't know what had happened. She didn't care what had happened. All she needed to know... was that Setsuna was all right.

-

"Wha... What? I made Sakurazaki cry? I did? I'm so sorry!" said Sayo in a single breath as she hovered around the dorm room of Kazumi Asakura. "I..." she put her hands on her face and shook her head, "I can't believe it! I didn't mean to!"

Asakura grinned as she clicked through the newest pictures from her digital camera on her computer. "You sure it was you who did that, or some other totally unrelated ghost named Sayo Aisaka?" she snickered.

* * *

A/N: So what if Sayo usually doesn't act like this? She should, at least once in the while. I like her character, if only because she's a ghost that is in no way scary. Oh, yeah, and the fact that she tags around with Asakura. They have such a weird relationship, hehe... Plus, I at least tried to portray Setsuna as her own separate character rather than the other half of KonoSetsu. Though I sorta ended up failing since that's_ the only thing she ever thinks about_. Unless it's being angsty about being an outcast from the bird tribe, but I'm sure you're all sick of that already. 


End file.
